


let us live now

by JadeLupine



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Aftermath, Anal Sex, Canon Compliant, Children, Domestic, Dreams Coming True, Fatherhood, Flashbacks, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Love, M/M, Romance, Tea Shop, a lot of sex too tbh, old men being sweet and sad and gross
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-27 02:47:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2676119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JadeLupine/pseuds/JadeLupine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> “Levi,” Erwin’s voice is intense, out of place in a world no longer filled with interminable peril and gnashing Titans. “Come with me. We will start our white fenced teashop. Have children. Let us live, Levi, we are old men.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“You’re what, thirty five? Don’t be sappy, you one-armed fuck.” Levi feels a smile tingling at his lips like the onset of a thunderstorm. “But yes. Yes, Erwin.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Their bones tell them that it is finally all right to live. </i>
</p><p>Inspired by that interview - Levi and Erwin have started a new life after the Titans are exterminated, with a tea shop, and a daughter, and the strange sweetness of happiness and some salt left over from old tears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let us live now

**Author's Note:**

> nerdy old men with a daughter and a tea shop being cute and sentimental and lame
> 
> also many sex
> 
> isnt this the basic premise for eruri? 
> 
> anyway, this is inspired by the interview where levi says his dream is to follow erwin and run a teashop and erwin wants to have kids so ya here u go

“You know what’s the oddest, most fucking unexpected thing in this entire operation?” Levi shrugs off his jacket one final time, sitting on the edge of Erwin’s desk amidst he papers, which do not matter too much anymore. He thinks vaguely, how beautiful Erwin looks in his short brown jacket and straps and gear – standing at the window. He watches the taller man’s hand – it is rough and tanned in the long shadows of the office and the way the muscles dance under the skin, the rhythm of it as he clenched and unclenched his fist – Levi thinks that Erwin is stitching this world together with his brilliant brain and single arm, oh he remembers how long ago Erwin had stitched Levi together when he had had two terrible hands, beautiful hands.

“What?” Erwin turns around, eyes flashing bright and blue. He wonders if it would be appropriate to walk to Levi and gather him to his chest now. Touch him and take hold of his lithe hands. “What’s so unexpected, Levi?”

“That we’ve finished the Titans. That we’ve done it, finally, saved your humanity and look. Just look at everyone running out of the walls like there’s a striptease going on there.” Levi wonders slowly, walking up to the window with Erwin, lays a hand on the nothingness below the broadest shoulder he had ever bitten. He wants to kiss the blonde man, now – now, but he doesn’t. Levi is crass and stupid and an idiot, he thinks about himself, but he knows better than to spoil Erwin’s happiness. His bigger goal. A bigger goal than Levi. He does not kiss him, and wonders how time might have flowed differently, had they kissed.

“And what is your point?” Erwin’s eyes rip from the window and land on Levi’s dark eyes, dark circles, and milk-white skin. He watches him for a long, long time – until Levi finally answers.

“The point is – I don’t know where to go. I have nowhere to fucking go, Erwin.” His breath comes out of him in a reluctant rush of confusion and grief (how is he mourning what has killed thousands) and he wishes Erwin had two hands to comfort him. His head whirls slightly, he is thinking like a _child_ , why, why – spoiling everything when Erwin had finally achieved his goal, his quest to save humanity, why would he –

But what about _me_?

“I have nowhere to go, Erwin.” He says again, a hand trembling slightly. He expects the taller man to offer him some semblance of comfort and perhaps a one armed gathering hug, Erwin somehow trying to stitch their broken world together again, or perhaps even touch him until they feel their humanity return to them. In a world filled with Titans who were so, so different and bloody – when there were no more Titans, how could Levi judge whether he was human anymore? He wants Erwin to hold him like a child, just tonight, my lover. But the commander (what is he now without a title?) pulls away from him and his eyes are somehow less blue as he stands in front of Levi, slowly removing his khaki jacket, loosening the straps and belts until they all fall off him loosely – the white shirt and the jacket and the straps around his body. He looks god-like, and handsome in his white tights and nothing else, his hair messed slightly. Levi wants to meld into the curves of his abdominal muscles and the shine of his eyes. How rare and beautiful he is, but there is something missing, something decidedly un-Erwin about this.

“Look at me without this uniform.” Erwin looks intently at Levi, eyes glinting slightly. “Look at me, Levi – and then ask yourself. Are you the only one with nowhere to go?”

“I see. You’re just as alone as me, old man.” Levi whispers. They have gone to the end of the world to rescue the fickle promise of humanity and without it, they are nothing. They are nothing if not soldiers, nothing if not tearing out throats and blood and napes of necks. Erwin wants to have children and Levi wants to run a teashop, but they were soldiers, with empty promises in their throats. Erwin thinks, with some strange firecrackers under his eyelids – in his head rings the night he first kissed Levi, eight years ago, beautiful and sloppy and fumbling. Erwin knows where he will go.

He grips Levi’s two hands with the only one he has left, and feels the skin as hard as bone.

“Come with me. Live with me.” He coaxes softly. “Let’s do it together, let’s go to our nowhere together.”

“Stop being a sentimental idiot.” Levi snaps. “What are you, a housewife?”

“Levi,” Erwin’s voice is intense, out of place in a world no longer filled with interminable peril and gnashing Titans. “Come with me. We will start our white fenced teashop. Have children. Let us live, Levi, we are old men.”

“You’re what, thirty five? Don’t be sappy, you one-armed fuck.” Levi feels a smile tingling at his lips like the onset of a thunderstorm. “But yes. Yes, Erwin.”

Their bones tell them that it is finally all right to live.

_ - _

“Anastasia.” Erwin insists.

“Bella.” Levi snaps.

“Sofia.” Erwin coaxes. “Imagine her, just imagine her – Levi. She will be beautiful, our Sofia.”

“I prefer Francoise.” Levi says stubbornly. “You keep thinking about old man names to give her, and she’s going to have a favourite father fucking soon, asshole.”

“Don’t swear when they bring her, Levi.” Erwin’s lip twitches in anticipation that he tries to hide with his granite expression. “We don’t want to teach our baby your vulgar, disgusting language.”

“Are you underestimating my fathering capability, you shitty old man?” Levi raises his eyebrows, and something crumples and softens like butter in him to see the excitement in Erwin bubble so close to the surface. The man had been wanting children for so long, any child, a boy, a girl, twins – he had always wanted to raise a life. Levi was used to Erwin’s longing glances when the visit Nile and Marie and the kids, his hours and hours spent playing with their kids, Janet and Linnet, Levi had once been jealous, thinking it was out of affection for Marie, but he soon found out that it was the children Erwin wanted. It was always the children he wanted, and finally, the adoption agency, left with thousands of babies unwanted after families fled from the government outside the walls in the first wave, babies barely months old. They asked for one, and when the ex-Commander, the man who had led them all to save humanity asks for a child, any child – you give it to him.

“I will tell you, Levi.” Erwin smiles. “I am going to be the favourite father. You’ll just be mummy who runs the teashop.”

They had bought a place already; all that was left was to set it up, to name it.

The doorbell rings, and there’s a black haired man with a child in his arms, bubbling with excitement, a blue eyed, brown haired little girl of seven or eight months, clapping her hands. Levi takes the child from the man and holds her gingerly whilst Erwin finished the paperwork and rushes the man away, he wants to be alone with his lover and his child and their dreams of their teashop. He wants to hold them both in the one arm he had left, smother them in the thundering blue stillness of happiness, stall all the clocks and stab father Time.

“Levi,” his whisper is quiet and almost broken as he stares at Levi holding the child, something close to smiling on his face, his teeth glinting as the baby delightedly pulled his black hair, babbling meaninglessly and already kicking fat legs in excitement. Erwin feels a blind flutter in his heart and wonders if this is all he had ever wanted, all he –

“Don’t cry, you piece of shit.” Levi kicked Erwin’s shin as the man came closer. “You’re such a fucking fairytale, I feel sick.”

“Sorry.” Erwin laughs, and they uses a large finger to stroke the child’s rounded cheek, and she grabs hold of his finger and thrusts it into her mouth. “I – Levi, I am –“

“Truly happy? Don’t say it, idiot. I know.” Levi feels something climbing up his own throat and immediately snuffs it out. “What will we name the little bugger then?”

“Liesl. I want to – if you do, I want to call her Liesl Smith.”

“Yeah.” Levi’s voice is rough as he brushes the girl’s curly hair out of her eyes. “Yeah. Liesl Smith. It’s not too shitty. We could name our shop that too. Liesl’s Place.”

“Yes.” Erwin rocks the child slightly – one arm is more than enough for her tiny body. “Yes, Liesl’s Place fits – since Liesl’s Place is here. With us.”

“Say something else out of a story book and I will walk out now, you fucking asshole.”

_

Levi feels immortal, and of course he should, because Erwin is below him, sweat and rage and poison, thrusting into tenderness, hot flesh meets willing orifice. This is death, Erwin feels as if he is dying, his stump is throbbing and his eyes well up, and he spills into Levi, but still the small man rides him, but he still moves over his lover, his hips grinding softly.

along  _comes_  the spider…..

Erwin does not know why Levi is laughing, laughing fit to save the long-gone innocence they held.

_

Sometimes Levi feels as if they are suspended in stillness, something like sticky flies in amber, but far happier. He expects a Titan to pounce in through the windows, for Erwin’s other arm to be ripped off, and he sometimes looks at his gear hidden in the cupboard longingly. But this stillness suits Levi, this new love and life – the teashop is busy, Liesl’s Place is always buzzing with ex-soldiers and their families, with civilians and government official, with Erwin’s friends in high up places and Levi’s friends in low down nooks. Everyone was welcome to have milky tea or black, hot, strong chai, anyone could order toast and milky biscuits as long as they didn’t mind the family’s two dogs bounding up around them. Liesl herself kept them busy, at five years old she was a beautiful girl who had nobody’s grey eyes and nobody’s curly brown hair, flouncing around the teashop and trying her hardest to break every teacup.

“Daddy,” she turns into the room where Levi sat alone, his old khaki jacket on his lap. “Daddy, my hair’s got tangles, and if I tell Papa, he’s gonna pull too hard. You comb my hair, daddy.”

“Liesl, you’re supposed to plait your hair before bed, if you don’t, it’ll tangle.” Levi sighs, and puts away his jacket. He was Daddy, and Erwin Papa, the latter was the one who kissed Liesl in bed and read her stories and hugged her when she comes with a drawing or a smashed teacup. But Levi was Daddy too, who kissed every bruised knee, wiped away hot, sudden, childish tears when Erwin scolds her lightly for breaking something, or pulling someone’s hair, it was Levi who brushes teeth and combs hair – and he had never, _never_ seen himself doing this. He pats his lap and smiles. “Come on then, let’s comb your hair, Papa’s never been too good with a hairbrush, that idiot.”

“Even when he had two arms?” Liesl’s eyes are bright spaces in a pale face.

“Erwin can have a million arms and still be incompetent at things like that.” Levi smiles, and begins to use his fingers to work the tangles out of Liesl’s long brown hair. Erwin (as usual) was the one who insisted she grow it out, and keep it tied in two braids on her shoulders, the quintessential Sina (of times past) child. A smile flickers on Levi’s face as Liesl begins to talk of this and that, of mean cats in the alleyway and how uncle Eren forgot to buy her sweets.

“How come I don’t know how to read, Daddy?” Liesl asks, as Levi plaits one side of her hair neatly. “I want to learn.”

“You’re only four, Liesl. You’ll go to school then, and you’ll learn.” Levi told her quietly, wondering why she even wanted to read. She must probably think that Erwin’s long, terrible books contained something exciting.

“But that’s two years!” Liesl’s lips stick out and she glares accusingly at Levi. “Two whole years! How old where _you_ , Daddy?”

“I was twenty.” Levi says quietly.

“But that’s so old!” Liesl takes comfort in the fact that six was far before twenty. “Why were you so old when you began to read?”

“I never had the chance. Or the reason.” He whispers. “Your Papa taught me how.”

 

_“What are you looking at, cadet?” Captain Erwin Smith’s voice rang out through the room. Levi wonders how the loud idiot ever became captain, he was only five or so years older than Levi, only that his voice was deep and brash and stupid. He wants to never speak to him again, he is the reason Farlan and Isobel are dead, and he will never speak to Erwin Smith, with his false sympathy and terrible hair. He feels the warmth of the frightfully tall man stand next to him awkwardly, his fingers tapping on the wooden table._

_“Oh, you’re reading the strategies for the next mission outside!” Erwin’s face blooms from stone to a smile, his eyes flashing, and Levi is again caught by how young he is too, how earnest. “Should we discuss them? Maybe we can come up with a new forma—“_

_“Don’t talk to me, Sina-vermin.” Levi spits at him, his eyes crackling. “I don’t need to hear your plans.”_

_‘Sina-vermin?” Erwin’s baritone is confused. “What?”_

_“You come from the posh parts of the inner-city. Probably a rich father in the education or government department. Mother a housewife, makes you lunch, and a little sister or brother looking up to Erwin-heichou, eh? You know who I had, you shitty piece of worthlessness? Farlan. And Isobel.” Levi feels anger touch his tongue, acidic and human._

_“You do not know me, cadet.”_

_“My name. Is. Levi.” He snarls, and his fingers twitch. He wants to kill this man, but no. He wants to kill Titans first, his breath raggedly running out of his mouth, he looks back at the paper where meaningless words were scrawled, merely black swirls to Levi. Nothing of importance – he could not decipher it._

_“What do you think, Levi?” Erwin uses his name then, and comes even closer. “What do you think of my plans? Would it work?”_

_“I don’t know.” Levi mutters. “Get lost.”_

_“Don’t be so petulant. Don’t be r---“_

_“I don’t know what your fucking plans mean, Captain Erwin. Now please, kindly, fuck off.”_

_“Why can’t you see it?” Erwin frowns. “Wait. Can you read, Levi?”_

_“They say you’re gifted, with your brains. I can see how they came to that conclusion.” Levi murmurs. “Now just. Leave.”_

_“Do you want to learn?” Erwin smiles, sticks out a hand like a schoolboy, his hair shining in the light. He scratches the back of his neck. “I can teach you. You’re right, my father was a teacher. So I like teaching. I can teach you, Levi, how to read.”_

_“And what’s the bloody purpose?” Levi frowns. “What comes of this?”_

_“We can read plans together.” Erwin looks terrifyingly earnest, and this was something Levi did not often see in here, what with Pixis and Shadis and the rest treating each other and plans and humanity like shit, the cadets sleepy eyed and concentrating on only themselves – Levi finds that Erwin’s excitableness and eagerness and some sort of boyishness is wonderfully refreshing. He wants to smile sarcastically, but he didn’t want to see the disgusting wounded look on the other’s face. He knows that one day Erwin would be put in charge of the entire Corps, he knows that he would be the Commander instead of a Squad Leader, and Levi knows that by then, the man’s excited cheerfulness and willingness would disappear. He knows that by then, it would be too late for him to learn to read. He does not know books, but he knows people._

_“Teach me then, Captain Smith.” Levi sits down at the table, and looks on, amused, as Erwin fumbled for paper and ink. “Teach me how to read, and much good may it do you.”_

_Two months later, Levi helped Erwin draft the Long Range Scouting Formation in perfect English._

_-_

“Papa, I don’t want to sleep _now_.” Liesl kicks her feet, although her large eyes are closing, Erwin tucks her comforter under her neck. Erwin was always the one who kissed her before bedtime, as Levi hated watching others sleep, and Erwin was the one who asked about any fears, and anyone who scared her – he now strokes the curls away from her six year old forehead, and places a kiss on each eyelid.

“Goodnight, Liesl.” Erwin whispers. “You’ll find sleep in a while, I promise you.”

“But Papa, I don’t want to.” Liesl bites her lip. “Please, can I play some more?”

“No, no.” Erwin chides. “But you can talk to me, I’ll stay here.”

“No, you’re _boring_ and old.” Liesl smiles, and her eyes begin to close. “Papa, do you remember when you had two arms?”

“Well, that was very long ago.” Erwin strokes the neat curls again. “Very long ago.”

“Idiot papa.” Liesl mumbles sleepily, and Erwin’s eyes widen. He must remember to speak to Levi about swearing in front of Liesl. “Papa, do you think you’re happy with one arm? Or do you like having two?”

“I –“ he begins to give a long, typical sermon, but Liesl’s eyes are closed. He smiles. He remembers, of course. When he’d had two arms.

\--

_Levi takes a sharp breath as Erwin’s warm, large hands find their way to his inside, and he is spreading him open, Levi feels sensible and frothy and he sees Erwin as though through a faraway drawn curtain. Erwin is lowering his face again, and Levi feels the wet snaking of Erwin’s tongue, and he is licking him, he is licking him so hard that Levi feels as though he would——. He takes his cock in his hand and begins stroking it softly, not wanting release, not now. He feels the slight scrape of Erwin’s teeth against his ass, and he thinks—-_ _I am being eaten_ _._

_Levi’s head was thrown back against the pillow, and he gasps in delight (ecstasy?),  and there is something clawing at the pit of his stomach, it is want, want. He is determined to make as much of a glory out of this shadow stained world, and glory is Erwin, in name and in form, glory was the man who now had two fingers inside Levi, methodically, yet erratically pumping inside him. He removes his fingers and Levi feels denied, as if a child from whom a balloon was taken away._

_“You are sure?” Erwin asks for the final time, and Levi’s legs are spread open on the bed, Erwin’s cock is poised at his entrance, and the man is supporting himself on his hands, he is sweating slightly, and Levi will never, he will never, ever say no._

_Erwin enters him with a push, and Levi feels his own cock harden more (although it had seemed impossible). Erwin is poised over him in a macabre delicateness, and he feels as if he were in another world, and he was lingering idly on the edges of reality. Erwin begins to gyrate his hips slowly at first, grinding against Levi, and he feels Levi’s hole tighten imperceptibly around his length, and he thinks he is going to_ _explode_ _, because the captain was so whole, he was so full of Erwin now. Erwin thrusts himself into the black haired man-boy-child-lover, and their faces are so close that sweat is dripping onto Levi’s face, and it is not his own sweat, but he licks it off with the air of a man who delighted in every task._

_“Levi—-“ Erwin’s eyes are closed, and he is breathing quickly, irregularly through his nose.  They are so close that Levi feels as if he would stick to Erwin forever, and it does not harm him, that thought. Erwin is thrusting into him, deep and hard, and he feels as if he is a barrier, being broken open. His cock rubs on Erwin’s stomach, the simple action is enough to make him go—-almost over the top, and he is breathing harshly, harshly—-_

_“Oh, my love, my love—-“ Erwin is inhaling sharply, almost cutting his nostrils, and Levi knows he is close as the man keeps thrusting against him, grinding into him. With a final, shuddering motion, Erwin almost_ _sobs_ _Levi’s name —_

Oh yes. Erwin could definitely remember having two arms.

_

Erwin loves that battered crimson jumper, Levi notices with a laugh. He wears it half of autumn and winter, his scarred wrist sometimes sticks out of it. He sometimes runs a hand through his hair, when he is writing or talking to Liesl, and sometimes laughing. Sometimes his voice goes very low and terrible (when they talk about the deaths that once were all they had, and the political turmoil in the countryside), and there is something behind his eyes, like the burning, screaming torch at the front of a legion. Erwin tastes of longing, and he never kisses casually, he always holds Levi, as if he might be afraid of slipping him away into the night, he holds him very close, and his hands are always warm and a little rough.

Levi finds that he is in love with all the scattered bits of Erwin, the idiosyncrasies and the way his hair quirks up in the mornings and how he tangles his hands in Levi’s clothes, and how he speaks to Liesl with the laughing note in his voice, how he serves customers at Liesl’s Place with the lilting deepness, when he kisses Levi, the way his voice sounds when he is reading him the news from his sources, and the lovingly gruesome faces he makes when he pretends that he likes the way Liesl had had cut the tomatoes.

To think he’s known Erwin for all these years, and never noticed all these things until now.

_

Liesl is eight and finally goes to school. That is when, alone at home, Erwin kisses Levi, shoves his words down the once captain’s throat, and they kiss, because not anymore they choke on unsaid words. Instead, after they kiss, they lie together in a haze of sweat , and they feel impulses of brief, wild joy at the thought of their young, beautiful daughter, and they imagine their breaking life before him, and they kiss again. Liesl, to other people, is a sweet, wonderful, kind, clever girl, who talks far, far too much, and has endless questions. But for Erwin and Levi, Liesl is fondness and proximity and trust, Liesl is casual love igniting against the loud road of loneliness, Liesl is the binding contract that linked Erwin and Levi

“Daddy, Papa!” The child’s voice is high pitched, but she is grinning, laughing almost, and she comes running into the crowded teashop.

Infectious enthusiasm widens Levi’s smile into existence.

Erwin feels his own smile creep up, and wonders what dreams may come.

**Author's Note:**

> pls leave ur cutie comments pls if u liked it or even if u didnt like it ahhaha. 
> 
> thank u in advance for ur reviews xoxooxoxo


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